In our second State of the Game we would like to show all of you the Planetary Management and Exploration proof of concept video we shot a few days ago. Keep in mind that it is still early work in progress for now, but we hope it shows you guys the general idea! A more in-depth look into these features, as well as ground combat and colonization, will happen in a full Dev Blog when it is nearer to completion.

Improved visuals for all space view modes (RTS, Tactical, and Tactical views). It is much easier to see the grid system to orientate yourself on.

The box that could be seen while the cursor is over asteroids fields that have dust clouds has been fixed and should no longer show.

Planets now correctly face the star closest to the star, making the game look much more realistic and beautiful.

All planets now have scripts to allow for city lights, though those on Gas, Lava, and Ocean planets are turned off until I make them mesh better with the specific planets they are on..

The Options Menu has been updated with a new layout, new options, and it is now easy to add more new options in the future, such as a brightness slider.

Stars, planets and other planetary bodies now have had a really nice visual upgrade when using post effects. These make the stars, planets and other object look even better.

While you have ships selected, the selection UI will now show you the state of the ships as well.

Bridge scene changes:

Planets are lifted up while you are on the bridge. This makes it easier to keep an eye on your surroundings while on the Bridge and look much nicer at the same time.

The Empire Management UI has been revamped with a new visual style and being made ready for Planetary Management.

The wide screen TV’s on the bridge now have different custom shaders, making them less opaque and have some nice visuals such as a distortion and refresh rate.

Planetary Shields have had a visual improvement, specifically to make it look better when seeing them from the Bridge.

Planetary Scene (in early WiP):

Terrain Generation

Work has started on random terrain generation, which will create a unique map for each planet in the game during exploration. Once a map has generated, it is permanent for that planet, though there are ingame ways to change what a planet is like. The terrain created for planets includes hills, forest, mountains, marshes, oceans, deserts, rivers, more alien landscapes, and more. Each with it's own effect on unit vision, movement speed, and more.

Weather effects that can affect your units much like terrain, but is usually temporary.

Light effects: planets have the hue they should have depending on what star they are closest to in RTS view. So a planet orbiting a Blue star will actually have a blue hue.Construction:

Work on construction of buildings such as Sectors (your factories and such), walls and roads is underway, as can be seen in the video. The art for all of the buildings is currently placeholder..

Sector management and construction is in, though both still need a lot of work before reaching a finished state.Turn-based movement and combat systems:

The server team is working on setting up turn-based systems for the various planetary features. In short, ground combat will happen simultaneously every cycle (5 minutes) based upon player orders and AI rules of engagement, while Planetary Management and Exploration takes place every 30 seconds.

Depending on how you design your ground units, units gain a specific amount of action points to be used on movement and combat. This is also modified by terrain and weather for example.

Other:

New tech trees have been made. At least one new one of each type (such as hulls, weapons, engines, sensors, etc.) for testing and balancing. We are currently working on the formulas and systems that allows us to create large amounts of technologies that are all relevant, but also balanced towards each other.

The Intro video has been re-added to the game, though it may need recoding in the future.

Hope you guys liked this second State of the Game blog. If you have any questions, we will try to answer them in the comments!

It said in the video that you can buy components to rush production. But where do these components come from? Is there a galactic marketplace, or is it simply a case of 'pay and get' like in the Civ series?

The planetary shield. My initial assumption was that it was simply an atmosphere. Perhaps a unique colour would make it stand out more? Perhaps a pulsing visual and sound effect?

It said in the video that you can buy components to rush production. But where do these components come from? Is there a galactic marketplace, or is it simply a case of 'pay and get' like in the Civ series?

The planetary shield. My initial assumption was that it was simply an atmosphere. Perhaps a unique colour would make it stand out more? Perhaps a pulsing visual and sound effect?

About your market question, ALL items ingame come from other players. So even if you buy stuff to rush production, you probably want to do this ahead of time since you (or some other player) will have to ship those items to your construction planet. It much like how EVE online works, if you know that game.

About the Planetary Shield, when you actually play the game it is quite obvious. It also has a wave kind of thing going through it, but I don't think I got that in the video. I'll have a look if we can maybe change the visuals a bit though, if it turns out more people agree :).

One thing we are considering is that players may purchase raw resources at an exorbitant price, which would also have a delay before you actually received them.Another idea is to add NPC loan sharks that give you money up front but dock your long term earnings incase players accidentally mismanage their money or need a quick boost, say to pay troops, during a war.

Being able to see how sectors distance has decreased a little and the appearance of the rouge planets in between the sectors is what gave me chills. I can only image how epic it will be in game to one day come up to a rouge planet and have it just be surrounded by an Alliances military outpost or a giant black market pirates base.